Dharmendra Pradhan set to become India’s longest-serving Oil Minister

Ujjwala-man Dharmendra Pradhan is set to become India’s longest-serving Oil Minister as he set out for a second stint, during which his priorities he said will be to raise domestic oil and gas production, expedite creation of national gas grid and create common market-friendly infrastructure. Pradhan is the only oil minister after Atal Bihari Vajpayee government’s Ram Naik to have completed full five-year term. But unlike Naik, he has been reassigned the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, which he had made a common household name through the free LPG cooking gas connection scheme Ujjwala in the first stint. Late Murli Deora too had a five-year stint – from January 2006 to January 2011, as the oil minister but it was split over two governments, both led by the UPA.